Having Jebediah use his jetpack to try and grab the ladder half way up the side of the ship turned a nice uneventful trip to the moon into "watch Jeb explode and strand the rest of the team".

Lesson learned...

Hmm, I found that was the only way to do it on Minmus. The lander ladder wasn't quite long enough for the crew to walk over and grab it. On the Mun, a quick jump and grab worked fine. The low gravity on Minmus made jumping a little imprecise, so I started using their jetpacks instead for added control.

Probably time to just fix that ladder before something goes horribly wrong...

Well damn, this game is quite addicting, it's like lego technic with infinite parts and explosions. I'm currently figuring out how to get 40T-80T in a stable orbit at once, it's getting there, but the mass required (300T+) makes the rockets silly large.

For the next part: which parts do you guys use for building space stations? I've found the white tube, yellow cube, docking ports and solar panels, but that isn't all right we have right?

I decided to replace the modules that have RCS fuel with ones that have less, and docking nodes on the ends. One of them had the core of the station directly attached to it, so I had to send up a new core with docking nodes on all sides, then connect everything to that. I'm not sure about the difference in the number of parts, but there's much less lag now which is nice.

I'm working on the most efficient way to get a full Jumbo-64 and the large RCS fuel pod into LKO. I thought I read somewhere that a good rocket should be able to get 17% of its mass into orbit, is this a good number? My numbers are closer to 10%. From what I've read, I should try for a 2.2 TWR off the pad and I need about 4,500 Dv for orbit. I know it doesn't matter as of right now, but eventually it will cost to put things into orbit and overkill will get expensive. As an MO, I want to try to approach the game like its costing me already, so I'm ready for it when it does! Any tips or experiences would be nice

Also, sometimes the more struts I use, the more shit I break on my designs. It's like if they're wobbly, I can get more into space. Is there maybe too many parts in my rocket and my comp is kinda having a mini-crash? It is just a laptop and I wonder how big I can make my designs before my comp decides enough is enough. The last couple nights I've hit a roadblock where my Habitat module crashes into my large RCS tank. I put so many struts trying to reinforce that area, but to no avail. Sometimes the only difference is that the structural failure happens later in the launch than earlier. I take almost all of them off and while it wiggles and waggles all the way, it makes it into space... I know one shouldn't mess with success, but it just bothers me.

Anyways, I've designed some Asparagus builds so I know how that concept works, but I also want to keep in mind the eventual aerodynamics changes they are gonna make. I understand that it takes a lot of energy to get things into orbit, I'm just looking for some hints on how to improve my efficiency. Every little bit counts and if I'm expecting to land on some far away planets and moons, I'm gonna need it. I don't have the patience for designing 1000 ton rockets with 1000s of parts, but maybe that's what is expected in this game. Thanks guys!

Random question that I can't figure out from looking through the KSP docs or wiki: How can I make the game display the normal and anti-normal direction to my orbit (ideally on the navball)? I want to change my orbital inclination, but I can't find enough info to figure out which way to burn. I only have the base game installed now, but really keep meaning to install the engineer mod that has been mention or MechJeb for the added info they provide.

Random question that I can't figure out from looking through the KSP docs or wiki: How can I make the game display the normal and anti-normal direction to my orbit (ideally on the navball)? I want to change my orbital inclination, but I can't find enough info to figure out which way to burn. I only have the base game installed now, but really keep meaning to install the engineer mod that has been mention or MechJeb for the added info they provide.

The easiest way is just to set up a maneuver node, I think (it's the purple controls).

Random question that I can't figure out from looking through the KSP docs or wiki: How can I make the game display the normal and anti-normal direction to my orbit (ideally on the navball)? I want to change my orbital inclination, but I can't find enough info to figure out which way to burn. I only have the base game installed now, but really keep meaning to install the engineer mod that has been mention or MechJeb for the added info they provide.

The easiest way is just to set up a maneuver node, I think (it's the purple controls).

I'm working on the most efficient way to get a full Jumbo-64 and the large RCS fuel pod into LKO. I thought I read somewhere that a good rocket should be able to get 17% of its mass into orbit, is this a good number? My numbers are closer to 10%.

Going to a ~150k orbit and then rendezvousing with a station, I'm around 10% too. Before the KSP forums went down I saw the record at 24% to get a jumbo tank and large RCS into an 80k orbit. The guy had several stages of smaller tanks to do it though. One guy claimed 25% but I don't think he had pics.

/edit/ Speaking of... the forums are back up! But apparently a lot of stuff got reverted to as far back as October.

My station is now at a 150k orbit. It doesn't give as much room to manouver, though. My average fuel lift gets about 1k fuel units up to station. The fuelers I'm using are a large orange w/ 8 double height strap ons for the first stage, and the fuel itself in the second stage in the one-size-down tank with a docking ring and a third half size tank hooked to the docking ring. On the second stage, once I drain down the small tank (it gets me to an orbit with a perigee of about 25k just as it runs out) I jettison it and make the final corrections with the second stage.

From the previous flights, though .. I'm having a serious space debris problem. Most of which have docking rings but they're in various elliptical orbits. I might have to start sending out drones to retrieve and de-orbit them .. or hope that they add some sort of 'make modules into other things while in orbit' so I can reuse them. There's enough crap up there now that I can make a nice habitat.

Asparagus staging at this point. 8 small diameter boosters clustered around a large. My biggest payload increase came from using double height boosters. At this point I'm not fully jettisonned of boosters until I reach almost 10k m3.

...

Oh, I'm also working on my spaceplane piloting skills. Those things are horribly unstable, and I keep destroying the engine on the stock Aries 4a upon liftoff. Replaced it with an aerospike and it it's a lot better. I barely have any fuel at all once I get to the station, however.

I initially wanted to keep to size 1 engines to take advantage of their higher Isp, but eventually I came to the conclusion that the raw thrust of the Mainsail was the only solution. I shouldn't say only, maybe easiest is a better description. The structure required to get 1500 kN out of LV-Ts was pushing me up against the law of diminishing returns, or so I believe. I have come to accept that the first 10k of my ascent will be powered by Mainsails, just to get me out of the worst gravity and drag as quickly as terminal velocity will allow me. There may be a better way to achieve this. If that's true, I'm all ears! I've also come to the conclusion that keeping empty tanks instead of staging them to drop can be better off due to the drag and mass that the staging equipment add. It does kinda seem like there might be too large a thrust gap between the LV-T30 and the Mainsail. I suppose there are add-ons to fix this, but as of right now I only intend to use MechJeb.

I have come to accept that the first 10k of my ascent will be powered by Mainsails, just to get me out of the worst gravity and drag as quickly as terminal velocity will allow me

Pad to terminal velocity with as much thrust as possible. SRBs, Mainsails on tiny little tanks, you name it. For smaller rockets, SRBs are actually pretty good for this. The really big SRBs not so much, they don't burn out before they become victims of their Isp.

If you're not flying off the Launchpad like Kerbin itself just went into reverse, you're wasting fuel!

I sometimes use a very quick burning first stage for just this. A single small Rockomax fuel tank and a Mainsail, then the same again with more Mainsails with 6x symmetry. You can add 12x small SRBs to this if you need more Jebs.

Me too. The way I look at it, no need to design rockets that will eventually not work. Of course, the problem is that an answer to my questions is adopting a build strategy that takes advantage of the current "rules". I'm hoping that the aerodynamics changes will come quickly so we can get to more traditional looking rocket builds. In that same regard, some bigger diameter rocket parts might be important too, like 3.75 or even 5m parts.

To me, the game is a set of rules I have to get as close to as possible to get the most out of my rockets.

Any type of asparagus staging at all shits in the face of aerodynamics, for example. This is why real rockets are vertical stacks. Real rockets also have ENORMOUSLY higher thrust to weight ratios. Saturn V, for example, was 2,800 tons. My straight-up three stage reproduction in KSP is much more capable and 315 tons.

In KSP, everything is scaled down, but you really can't do that with fluid dynamics. Kerbin, for example, is around the same size as Pluto (it's just 1,200km diameter). Were it placed where Earth is, its atmosphere would be appreciable out to 10,000 km: It'd essentially be a giant comet but for its density: 58,500 kg/m^3. Make a planet of pure lead at the same size, and Kerbin would out-mass it five times over.

Interestingly, Jool is nearly exactly the size of Venus and is only very slightly less dense. This means Jool's "surface" gravity is significantly weaker than Kerbin's (which is scaled to the same as Earth). Kerbol itself is just 9 Jupiter masses and realistically wouldn't even be a star.

It seems there's about a factor of 100 scaling going on.

Bottom line: It's a game. The devs made some decisions which laugh at the laws of physics. It's only fair that we laugh back.

For this little mini-guide, I'm going to assume you know how to get to orbit, you've landed on the Mun, but maybe Minmus is a bit too hard to hit. You're also going to need to know how to use manoeuvre nodes. You also need to know how to do a Hohmann Transfer both up and down.

Raising/Lowering Apoapsis and PeriapsisRaising apoapsis is done by thrusting in your direction of travel when at periapsis. Raising periapsis is done by thrusting in your direction of travel at apoapsis.Lowering apoapsis is done by thrusting opposite your direction of travel when at periapsis. Lowering periapsis (e.g. re-entry) is done by thrusting opposite your direction of travel at apoapsis.

Intercepting For CheapWe all know how to use Hohmann Transfers, but what about the more efficient Bi-Elliptical Transfer? In this, you raise your apoapsis really high, way beyond the target orbit. The higher, the better. What you're doing is trading away time for efficiency. You reach periapsis and raise your apoapsis, then you get to apoapsis, then raise your periapsis to the desired orbital altitude. Once you return to periapsis, you circularise. A Bi-Elliptic transfer to Duna, out to Eeloo, essentially gets your payload there for free compared to a Hohmann Transfer. You use so much less fuel that you can make a good lander for the same fuel mass you save!

Adjusting InclinationInclination is done at the ascending node or descending node. This is where your orbit crosses the planet's equator, it's like the fulcrum of the orbit, as you have to return to where you are right now regardless of what thrust you make (unless you thrust again later). You thrust 90 degrees up or down relative to your heading (parallel to the planet, not towards or away) to adjust your inclination.

Working with MechJebDo your bi-elliptical transfer to slightly lower than the target's orbit. MechJeb will show an inordinate number of seconds to transfer point, but will get you there with double-figure delta-V.

Intercepting a lower planetFrom your Hohmann or Bi-Elliptical transfer orbit (which has a periapsis very slightly outside the planet's orbit), wait until such time as you are at periapsis just ahead of the planet. Circularise (or match eccentricity) at that point. Your slightly higher orbit will mean you drop towards the planet.You can do the same with a slightly lower orbit, and planning the manoeuvre when at periapsis just after the planet.MESSENGER did this to get to Mercury, as it requires very little delta-V.

Intercepting a higher planetThis works the same as a lower planet (gets less love, as MechJeb can do it with a simple and inefficient Hohmann), but you do manoeuvres at apoapsis. Otherwise, the same rules apply.

LandingDon't try to do some funky inverse gravity turn, it's not needed. Just kill horizontal velocity in one go and drop if you lack an atmosphere, or do aerobraking if you have one.

Aerobraking?Great, you got to Duna! Now how to enter orbit? You could just get to periapsis and thrust retrograde, but that's awesomely wasteful. As soon as your SoI transfers, lower your periapsis to just inside the atmosphere, between 6 and 10 km for Duna. If you went too low, you can thrust prograde at periapsis to raise your apoapsis back out of the atmosphere. You should now be in orbit. Repeat the process to lower your apoapsis to where you want it, then raise your periapsis out of the atmosphere.A good rule of thumb is that your apoapsis at periapsis is changed from what it was at atmospheric encounter by one half. If the apoapsis itself is then inside the atmosphere, you need to open the throttle.

Use IspIgnore mass for engines, use Isp instead. This is how efficiently the engine converts fuel into delta-V. Big clunky first stages (e.g. the Mainsail) often have quite high Isps at sea level, but are poor in space. Better Isp means your fuel is better converted into velocity and Isp is king in space: The nuclear engine is all you should use for orbital operations, ideally.Small upper-stage engines usually have great Isps in space (but are shit in atmo): Use these to get to orbit, but then use your NERVA once you're there. Or use twenty NERVAs. The huge Isp offsets their mass.Ion engines are something else entirely, they wipe the floor with ALL other engines, but need to thrust for so much longer and use exotic propellant. They're great for probes, but probably not for Jool orbit insertion, as their thrust is really poor.

Intercepting For CheapWe all know how to use Hohmann Transfers, but what about the more efficient Bi-Elliptical Transfer? In this, you raise your apoapsis really high, way beyond the target orbit. The higher, the better. What you're doing is trading away time for efficiency. You reach periapsis and raise your apoapsis, then you get to apoapsis, then raise your periapsis to the desired orbital altitude. Once you return to periapsis, you circularise. A Bi-Elliptic transfer to Duna, out to Eeloo, essentially gets your payload there for free compared to a Hohmann Transfer. You use so much less fuel that you can make a good lander for the same fuel mass you save!

Bi-elliptic orbits are only more efficient if the target orbit has a semi-major axis 11.94 times that of the starting orbit. Since Kerbin has a semi-major axis of ~13*10^9m, and Eeloo has a semi-major axis of ~90*10^9m, I doubt the efficiency gain will be very great. It might be worth it for Eeloo just because of the orbital inclination, not sure about that. You won't gain anything doing one to Duna.

I compromise with a single booster ring.. real rockets use strapons, too, and look at the proposed Falcon Heavy design. They'll be using asparagus staging from the two boosters into the core stage one. The Delta uses small solid boosters in a ring to get off the ground.